


sharp eyes; or, the ballad of alice smith cooper

by Em11134



Series: ballads [2]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Riverparents, alice is a traumatized social climbing bully, and more bad parenting and bad marriages, just dresses and makeup and lots of blood, no springsteen and no nietzsche here, parentdale, so there will be more self-delusion and disillusionment, there will be unrequited love but she doesn’t care much about that, this is as subtle as a brick through a window
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 05:56:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15090440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Em11134/pseuds/Em11134
Summary: Eight vignettes from the tragic life of Alice Smith Cooper.





	sharp eyes; or, the ballad of alice smith cooper

**verse one**

Alice sits cross-legged on the carpet in front of the TV. Her mother says, “Dollbaby, you’ll ruin your eyes.” Her father says, “You make a better door than a window.” He tosses a beer bottle. Alice doesn’t flinch; he wouldn’t hit her, not when he might hit the TV.  

The doctor says, “Your eyes are working fine.” Alice sees her mother’s hands, the chapped skin and the red painted nails. She watches them sew lace on the hem of a pink cotton dress. She sees the woven rug that hides the blood on the shag carpet, the cockroach climbing the laminate bedknob, the watermark on the ceiling, shaped like a cherub. She sees, but she does not know.

**verse two**

Alice twirls in her pink cotton dress with its lace hem, and her mother claps her hands and says, “Like a princess.” Alice clutches a twinkling mason jar in her lap on the school bus. She hides the jar in a paper bag, so it will be a surprise.

Alice holds court over the other girls on the playground. She is the prettiest; even the teachers marvel at her blue eyes, her blonde hair. She is the loudest and the cleverest; they call her a smart cookie. Alice tells the fat ginger girl, “Four square is for four. You can’t play.”

In the classroom, the fat ginger girl cuddles a porcelain doll that looks like Alice. The skinny brown-haired boy vrooms his plastic truck across the teacher’s desk. Alice lifts the jar out of the paper bag, lifts it high above her head. “They twinkle, see?”

The fat ginger girl drops her doll. “What?” Alice asks. “They’re only fireflies.” She explains in her loudest, cleverest voice, “They’re not the ugly ones or the itchy ones, like the cockroaches or the bedbugs.” The girls scream and the boys laugh, “Alice has bedbugs! Bedbug Alice!” The teacher frowns. Alice sees, and she knows.

**verse three**

Alice sits, one leg crossed over the other, on the hood of the brown-haired boy’s truck. He has filled out. So has she. He eyes the line of her leg, from her red sneakers to the fringed hem of her blue denim shorts. She licks at a cherry popsicle, then presses it against her fat lip. His skin is chapped, and his knuckles are red with scabs. He flexes his hands, taps the hood of the truck with an open palm, strokes his belt buckle. She sees, but she does not know.

The boy is called FP, short for Forsythe Pendleton Jones II. There is one other Forsythe Pendleton Jones. There are hundreds of Alice Smiths. “But I will be the only one that matters,” she says later, as he wraps his arms around her. “Just wait and see.” Her voice echoes in the empty pipe. He kisses her mouth, gently, then wipes away the spot of blood. (She has never been kissed before).

**verse four**

Alice’s mother’s heart is not working. “Unfortunately, there is nothing to be done,” the doctor says. Her mother leaves Alice a bottle of red nail polish and a picture of St. Rita, whose dead sons are cherubs flying around her head. On the back of the picture, there is a prayer for the hopeless. “My mother wasn’t hopeless,” Alice scolds St. Rita, “and neither am I.” St. Rita lives in her wallet anyway, next to crisp and folded ones and fives.

Alice buys her first bra, alone, and swipes cherry lipstick to match the nail polish. She’ll need a new family. She climbs on a stage in glowing neon light and unhooks her bra. The men are a blur of graying stubble and leather, and they smack the bartop with their open palms. They flex their hands and finger their belt buckles. They laugh and jeer. Alice is quiet. She tells herself, “I am the prettiest.”

She shows the crowd the line of her back, and turns her head to look at them, knowing. FP’s rum-colored eyes meet hers, then dip to her shoulder, where there will soon be an ink serpent. He will have an ink serpent on his chest, and when he wraps his arms around her from behind, resting his stubbled chin on her blonde head, the two serpents will touch.

**verse five**

Alice is no longer a princess. Alice is an Acid Queen. The pockets of her leather jacket are full of crisp and folded tens and twenties. She is still the loudest and the prettiest. But FP’s dad says she’s leading him to the devil, just because FP drinks rum until he’s sloppy, and the cheerleaders call her a white trash slut. No one says she’s a smart cookie; the teachers think she’s cheating.

She saunters into the school newspaper office. There is a boy, with blonde hair and blue eyes, hiding his soft hands in the pockets of his letterman jacket. His name is Harold Cooper; there must be others with that name, but not too many. He asks, “Any journalism experience?” Alice answers, “I’ve got sharp eyes, and I’m clever.”

He helps her out of her leather jacket. He says, “Call me Hal.” She turns her head to look at him, knowing.

**verse six**

Alice has a pink silk dress with a lace hem. Hal’s letterman jacket doesn’t match, but she wears it around her shoulders anyway. The blue wool prickles her bare skin, like it’s reminding her how much she doesn’t know: which fork to use, when to beg pardon, how to pen cursive. “Too fanciful,” she scolds herself. “Stop it.”

Hal’s dad (Father) says she’ll lead him to the devil, but Hal says he’ll talk him around. He buttons the jacket and murmers, “I worship you. Do this one thing for me.” He wraps his arms around her, front to front.

She doesn’t cry. (She only cries once, where no one can see her, so no one will know.) She locks herself in a stone cell. There is no TV, only a bronze crucifix. There is no one there, not even a firefly, not even a cockroach, not even a bedbug. She sews lace on the hem of a white linen handkerchief. She reads books about which fork to use, when to beg pardon, how to pray for the hopeless. She practices her cursive. Her face grows round, and her belly grows round. The son inside her kicks. She scolds him, “Stop it.”

**verse seven**

Alice saunters up to the grocery checkout and smiles at FP’s new girl. The pretty little pixie with black hair says, “That will be $19.84, ma’am.” Alice hands over the crisp twenty, slowly, so his new girl can see her red painted nails and her soft skin. She says, “Keep the change.”

Alice thinks, “I am Alice Smith Cooper. How many are there? No matter, because there’s none like me.” Alice is still the loudest, but she knows that a lady would be quiet, would beg pardon. She teaches her daughters to beg pardon. She orders them to be the prettiest and the cleverest, and they are. They have blonde hair and blue eyes like porcelain dolls, and she moves them from here to there like dolls.

Their father keeps quiet, too. He tinkers in the garage, he thumbs through the almanac. Alice doesn’t look at him; she’s got better things to do.

There is her newspaper, of course. But there is also her white carpet to keep pristine, and her fancy TV to watch. She has a closet full of silk and lace, so many new dresses to wear. She has a drawer full of lotions and nail polish in every shade of red.

In the night, she dreams of cockroaches climbing her gleaming mahogany bedknobs. She dreams of her pink bedspread with a lace hem making an itch she cannot scratch. She dreams of beer bottles hurtling towards her daughters’ perfect blonde heads. She dreams of her own voice, echoing in an empty pipe, and a boy kissing her until her lip cracks. She dreams that everyone in town is watching her cry.

**verse eight**

Alice has never seen her daughters. She has never seen her husband. She says, “I did not know!” She is Alice Smith Cooper, and there is no one like her: the murderess, the murderer’s wife. Everyone in town watches her cry. She puts her hands over her eyes. Her red nail polish is chipped, and her skin is chapped.

The doctor says, “Your eyes work fine. Fortunately, there’s something to be done for the rest of it.” He gives her pills that make her quiet. In the daylight, she dreams of green serpents, hanging from her shoulder by their fangs. She dreams of cherubs, flying around her head. She dreams of the sleeves of a letterman jacket, choking her. She dreams of blood in an empty pipe, blood on a white carpet, blood on a pink cotton dress with a lace hem. In her dreams, she licks at a cherry popsicle, and tastes blood in her mouth.

Alice takes St. Rita from her wallet, where she lives next to crisp and folded fifties and hundreds. She scolds her, “My son is dead. I am hopeless.” A firefly twinkles in her palm, and she crushes it.

**Author's Note:**

> Reading the others in this series is not necessary, but it will add much more dimension to this, because they all reference one another.
> 
> This was inspired by Patti Smith’s song, “Horses,” specifically the following lines:
> 
> “I was standing there with my legs spread like a sailor (in a sea of possibilities). I felt his hand on my knee.”
> 
> “Looked at my hands, and there's a red stream.”
> 
> “Angel looks down at him and says, “Oh, pretty boy, can’t you show me nothing but surrender ?”  
> Johnny gets up, takes off his leather jacket. Taped to his chest there's the answer. You got pen knives and jack knives and switchblades preferred.”
> 
> “There is no keeper but the key (up there there are several walls of possibilities), except for one who seizes possibilities, one who seizes possibilities  
> (up there), I seize the first possibility.”
> 
> “Shined open coiled snakes white and shiny twirling and encircling. Our lives are now entwined, we will fall, yes, we're together twining.”
> 
> As always, thank you for reading! I love to hear your thoughts and I accept constructive criticism! Let me know what you think via kudos or comments!


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